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Teenagers in foster care often call the abuse line, hoping an investigation will allow them to return to their parents, which almost all children prefer to foster care. Children know that even the worst parents love them. -- Foster Parent Trainer,

Ohio CPS News Archive

The Ohio news section is your source for the latest in family rights news items,
CPS reform efforts, open court demands, abolition of confidentiality laws that judges
hide behind, foster care deaths and issues, legal cases and more... Please
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Ohio News Coverage

James Dunn is a former Lake County Foster Parent of the Year who fostered 12 different children with no complaints.

Now, the 42-year-old Concord Township resident will never be allowed to foster another child again. Dunn, a longtime employee at a local insurance company until recently being terminated, was sentenced Sept. 14 to 30 months in prison for committing crimes against three boys.

Ohio has some of the lowest funding for child protective services in the United States. Funding dropped off during the recession and never bounced back.

The repercussions of this state's heroin epidemic are being seen in courtrooms, "Those of us that have this docket are finding that we're being overwhelmed and it is getting harder and harder to get the cases in in a timely fashion," said Nancy McMillen, a Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Magistrate.

If you drove by the Allen County Courthouse this afternoon you may have noticed protesters carrying signs. The group is concerned about family courts in Ohio, contending they tear families apart for profit.

Owen contends the courts don't make a profit if they bring two parents together. He says they only make a profit if they can separate. He claims the more children they get in foster care or the family court system... title 4-D of the Social Security system kicks in and they get more than 70% of that total case...not just child support but special programs like parenting classes and anger management and all of the other classes that these courts offer these parents he says the state's making a profit off of it and these parents are required to pay it.

A group of Cincinnati hospitals has mandated drug testing of new mothers and infants amid an 841 percent increase in the number of expectant Ohio mothers found to have an opioid addiction in the last decade, according to state health officials.

Seven hospitals in the Cincinnati area have universally tested for drugs since late 2013. The number of newborns in the area that were exposed in the womb to Percocet, methadone, heroin and other opiates quadrupled from 10.8 infants per 1,000 births in 2009 to 46 per 1,000 births in the first three months of 2013, according to Cincinnati Children's.

The number of abortions in Ohio dropped to 21,186 last year, the lowest number since 1976.

In 2014, 84.4 percent of abortions were performed at 12 or fewer weeks gestation; 51.7 percent of the women seeking abortions were white while 42.2 percent were black; 85 percent of the women were single; and 71.3 percent were under age 30.

Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, a top health care institution in the US, has finally given McDonald's the boot upon the realization that fast food may just not be the best choice for the sick (or anyone, really).

Well thank you, Cleveland Clinic! Considering that McDonald's food is full of GMOs, MSG, eggs that are a strange 'non-egg combination,' dimethylpolysiloxane (a silicone that can also be found in Silly Putty), and calcium silicate (a sealant used on roofs and concrete), you'll likely see an immediate improvement in your patient's health.

Child welfare, developmental disabilities, mental health, and juvenile court systems work to help at-risk kids in Ohio, but experts say that in a "multi-system" situation, some of these children are winding up in the wrong hands.

June Cannon, director with Miami County Children Services, says some youth enter child welfare because other agencies lack the resources to meet their mental health or developmental needs. She says an increasing number of parents are giving up custody of their children because services are too expensive or not covered by Medicaid.

Yet all three children died while under the supervision of a Hamilton County agency that has endured a decade of shrinking budgets, leaving it with fewer social workers and resources to protect abused and neglected kids.

Multiple sources tell newsnet5.com that the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner has been called out to the Cuyahoga County Jail this afternoon.

The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner confirms the inmate was 36-year-old Robert Sharp. According to court records, Sharp was arrested by Cleveland Police for an incident in December including aggravated vehicular assault and other drug related charges.

Toledo, Ohio, is in a state of emergency following the discovery of a dangerous cyanotoxin named micrcocystin in the water at the Collin Park water treatment plant, according to The Toledo Blade.

At a news conference, officials with the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department said that the level of the cyanotoxin, which is produced by a blue-green algae, is currently at 2.5 ppm. That's twice the allowable level; symptoms triggered by the toxin range from a rash to liver failure. A handful of studies done in China have also tentatively tied the toxin's presence in drinking water to certain types of cancer.

A western Kentucky couple arrested for endangering the welfare of a minor. The Ohio County Sheriff's Office arrested Dakota Daugherty and Lena Aubrey today at their home in Hartford.

A deputy was following up an investigation of an accident, where he found a 6-year-old outside along while the adults were inside sleeping. The child reportedly told the deputy he sneaks out of the house frequently while the adults are sleeping. The deputy then reported hearing an infant crying inside the home and saw the child through a window lying on her stomach and not moving but crying. The sheriff's office says the deputy knocked on the door several times before entering. He says the home had no electricity and no running water.

Homeschooling has been around for centuries, but online school is a comparatively recent innovation. In the last decade, all kinds of online education options have popped up, providing homeschooling parents with more options.

From Christian online academies to state online schools to post-secondary classes, the avenues for homeschooling seem infinite. The new question is: Do online classes "count" as homeschooling? Some parents whose kids take online classes consider themselves homeschoolers, but others do not.

DAYTON - A teenager in foster care is accused of leading police on a high speed chase in a stolen car this morning.

The 16-year-old girl is in police custody now. Officers spotted her and her 13-year-old sister around 1:30 a.m. in a Pontiac Sunfire a Fat Boys auto parts store, according to police. The vehicle was reported stolen out of Shelby County.

Heroin use by the parents or caregivers is skyrocketing as a factor in Ohio child custody cases, according to first-ever state data on the effect of specific drugs on cases.

Figures run by the state human services agency show almost 7,000 instances where heroin was cited in child custody cases last year, an 83 percent increase from three years earlier. The data also find methadone use growing slightly as a factor, while use of cocaine - still the top drug cited - is dropping slightly.

Ohio's "compulsory attendance" law requires all parents or guardians to send their children between the ages of 6 and 18 to a school that meets the State Board of Education's minimum standards.

Ohio law now allows homeschooled children to participate in extracurricular activities offered by the public school they are entitled to attend. The law only applies to programs not included in any graded course, and homeschooled children must meet the same nonacademic requirements (e.g., tryouts) and financial requirements (e.g., payment of fees) as other participating children.

Cleveland-based attorney Jack Landskroner said the two girls, ages 11 and 12, who were among 11 children kept in cages by former adoptive parents Michael and Sharen Gravelle filed the lawsuit

The lawsuit contends that the approval was given despite records showing that Michael Gravelle was an admitted child molester. Landskroner also said the lawsuit says the Gravelles met in sexual abuse counseling, had four prior marriages between them, and were previously involved with the Lorain County Department of Children's Services because their biological children claimed to live like prisoners and had several times attempted to run away.

Eleven children forced to sleep in cages by their adoptive parents reached a $2 million settlement with an Ohio county where three of them lived before they were placed in the home outfitted with wire and wood enclosures.

The latest and final settlement was agreed upon last week when officials in Stark County, where three siblings lived before being placed with Gravelles, signed off on the $2 million payout, Landskroner said. The county will pay $100,000 while the rest will come from its insurers.

Since 2008, the idea of third parties started to gain more popularity across America. Principled conservatives and libertarians united against both the Democrat and Republican establishment started to explore methods of opposing Washington elites.

The Ohio State Senate has passed this bill which would essentially eliminate all third party candidates from ballots. In the bill, only candidates from parties which earned 3% or more of the vote in a presidential election would be placed on the ballot; all other candidates would be write-in options. Newly qualifying parties must also submit petitions with at least 55,809 valid signatures. The bill would, in many ways, solidify the placement of the Democrat and Republican parties at the center of American politics. Voters must look up and remember the names - something which should be simple but many people simply vote party line, and this will create a discrepancy amongst parties - and write-in candidates must apply to be counted.

MORELAND HILLS, Ohio -- A 2-year-old boy in foster care, who was revived after being found floating in a pool Labor Day weekend, died Thursday afternoon at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital.

The victim, identified by the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office as Devantae Beard, had been transferred to the Intensive Care Unit at Rainbow from Hillcrest Hospital, where he was initially taken on Sept. 1 and kept about a week. The boy had been living with foster parents in University Heights before the accident, which occurred at the home of one of the caregiver's relatives on East Juniper Lane in Moreland Hills.

A Michigan woman whose son died at the hands of his abusive father cannot pin the blame on Child Protective Services, the 6th Circuit ruled. Rebecca Jasinski had filed suit after her 9-year-old son, Nicholas Braman.

Police reportedly discovered the bodies of Nicholas Branam, his step-mother Nancy and his father Oliver Branam on a bed together in their Montcalm County home. Investigators found that Oliver first drugged the boy, then attached the exhaust from his truck to the dryer vent, flooding the bedroom with carbon monoxide.

Talk of food stamp cuts by Democrats and Republicans in Washington is worrying food bank officials who already are struggling to serve hungry people.

The federal government is spending about $75 billion in the current fiscal year to help 47 million people pay for food. Across Ohio, 1.8 million people - about 16 percent of the state population - received $3 billion in food stamp benefits last year.

This month's dramatic collapse of a villa at the Summer Bay Resort in central Florida raises the question: Could a hole that big in the ground open up under a residential area here? Anything's possible, as Toledoans saw July 3.

Larger and more frequent sinkholes that occur naturally are most often a result of dissolved limestone or dolostone. Other types of dissolvable bedrock include gypsum and salt. Florida is the prime location for them, although that scenario also gets played out in other states with conducive geologic features - even scattered parts of Ohio, especially the Bellevue area. In eastern Ohio, sinkholes also can form when abandoned mines collapse.

ASFA was the culmination of an assault on safe, effective programs to keep families together that began in the 1990's. The law has caused untold misery for thousands of children. While supposedly intended to solve the problems of the foster care system, it has, in fact, worsened those problems.

On November 15, 2005 Huron County Judge Timothy Cardwell refused to return 11 special-needs children to their adoptive parents, keeping them in county custody pending a hearing scheduled for Dec. 6 due to allegations that the children were abused and neglected.

On November 15, 2005 Huron County Judge Timothy Cardwell refused to return 11 special-needs children to their adoptive parents, keeping them in county custody pending a hearing scheduled for Dec. 6 due to allegations that the children were abused and neglected.

Michael Gravelle has been accused of visiting three of his 11 adopted children Friday, March 24. Huron County Prosecutor Russell Leffler said the Gravelles could face criminal charges if the couple contacts any of the children again.

Today, Ken Myers, the Gravelle's attorney, is filing several motions in two separate courts. The most important motion he is filing in the criminal court is the motion to suppress evidence based on the fact that the social worker lied in her statement in order to obtain the warrant from the judge.

You may wonder how the Gravelles were able to manage 11 special needs children, a family friend talks about how they could care for eleven children. Also, Governor Taft urges lawmakers to pass new legislation aimed at families considering adopting more than five children.

I have been called into question as to how I could still be in support of the Gravelle family after the reports came out in court about the supposed abuse these children endured at the hands of Michael and Sharen Gravelle. I've been in contact with family friends who have since filled in a lot of the blanks for me and I now stand even more convinced that this case is without merit.

The Gravelle family has been accused of abusing 11 special-needs adopted children, placed in their care by the State of Ohio. Judge Timothy Cardwell, of the juvenile division of Huron County Common Pleas Court is the presiding judge.

A hundred years ago in institutions, anonymity left many at the mercy of the powerful and hidden from the view of society. Today that anonymity is reincarnated under the guise of confidentiality and the siren song of a right to privacy. I believe that confidentiality does not serve the disabled and disadvantaged, but rather serves to maintain the power of the "professionals."